I’ve Got The World On A String

There are only 9 more days!! We have made it to single digits everyone, please join me in the Hallelujah Chorus!!! 9 more days until Frank Sinatra Day! And with that wonderful knowledge in our grasp, it is time to continue the narrative. Today is going to be so much fun!

At this point in our narrative, we head into the 1960’s, when Frank’s song I’ve Got The World On A String was never more true for anybody than himself. The 1950’s and 1960’s made Frank. I don’t really know how to describe it and make it accurate. He was the king, the it, the all. His nicknames were The Voice and The Chairman of the Board. He was Frank Sinatra!!

And with all of this came the Rat Pack. The history behind the Rat Pack is actually pretty straightforward. It was begun by Humphrey Bogart. He wanted to begin a group that was basically dedicated to enjoying the finer things in life and not caring what people thought about it. Frank was appointed the “leader” of the group. From then on, the group became iconic. Even after Humphrey Bogart died the Rat Pack lived on. If nothing else, they definitely had a good time together. They were in movies together. Frank, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr. often did performances together. It was quite the life they lived.

Frank and Mia Farrow on their wedding day in 1966.

In 1966, Frank got married again. Mia Farrow was 19 years old when they got married, and Frank was 51. Nobody thought that the marriage would last, not even them. When Frank’s daughter Nancy, who was five years older than Mia, asked her father about the marriage, he is reported to have told her that he just wanted to try. He thought that they would maybe only have a few years together, but that they had to try. The marriage ended two years later. It is a very sad story because Frank truly loved Mia, and she truly loved him, I think. But in the end, perhaps they were in stages of life that were just too different.

Although career wise, Frank continued to have outrageous success in both acting and music. In 1962, the film The Manchurian Candidate was a Cold War suspense drama that did extremely well. Frank also directed his first and only film in 1965, None But The Brave. In 1968, The Detective was an extremely intense film Frank worked on that was very controversial. True to form, Frank pulled it off wonderfully. Besides intense career boosters like these, Frank did several movies with members of the Rat Pack that were all great fun such as Ocean’s Eleven in 1960 and Robin and the Seven Hoods in 1964. Music wise, Frank continued to crank out records and they continued to have smashing success.

Frank on the set of The Detective in 1968.

These times weren’t without their challenges, of course. There was the divorce from Mia Farrow, and while filming Robin and the Seven Hoods Frank’s son was kidnapped. While Frank was on a payphone with the kidnappers, he almost ran out of change and feared that his son would be killed. His son was successfully saved, but from then on Frank always carried a role of dimes with him. There was also the assassination of President John F. Kennedy during this time, and it was devastating for Frank as well as for the entire country. However, the thing that has hit me over and over again about Frank is the way he was able to deal with challenges. Just because he was Frank Sinatra does not mean that he didn’t face many difficulties. The thing about him though, was he knew how to pick himself back up. Because at the end of the day he did have the world on a string. He was, after all, Frank Sinatra.